Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

You might get a bunch of inbound emails from other press and partners, and all of these things can contribute to a feeling that you’re on your way to getting tons of traffic. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? It strokes your ego.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 28, 2008

We pitch to potential partners, vendors, publishers, conferences, employees, and even lawyers. Its different from selling a product, because it is not part of our regular business practice, is not something that relates to our core competence, and tends not to happen in a repeatable and scalable way.

San Francisco 128

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 128

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 26, 2009

As a result, the companies get a lot of exposure to VCs, investors, and partners in larger, more traditional startup hubs. And do your customer development. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Some of the mentors are based in Boulder, but many are not.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Silicon Valley Startup Lean 113

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Each of these four currencies represents a way for a customer to “pay&# for services from a company. A great product enables customers, developers, partners, and even competitors to exchange their unique currencies in combinations that lead to financial success for the company that organizes them.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 2, 2010

Sure, when entrepreneurs create startups that grow up into mature companies, they become part of an established industry, with its own ecosystem, norms, partners and best practices. This is just like a startup to me, complete with distribution and product development challenges, ecosystem design and many, many customers.

San Francisco 122

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 122

Steve Blank

JULY 29, 2013

Its goal is to take the original idea and search for a repeatable and scalable business model - first by finding product/market fit, then by testing all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). They deal with the daily crisis of product development and acquiring early customers.

Cofounder 335

Cofounder Advisory Board Customer Development Leadership 335

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

Here’s how I learned why they were critical to successful customer development. I was an aggressive, young and a very tactical VP of marketing at Ardent , a supercomputer company – who really hadn’t a clue about the relationship between profound beliefs, customer discovery and strategy.

Business Model 355

Business Model Product Development Early Stage Customer Development 355

David Teten

APRIL 1, 2021

Nick Kim , Crosscut’s Head of Platform, in his presentation at the 4th Annual VC Platform Summit, shared their Platform development methodology, which he viewed as an exercise in product development. For example, recruiting writ large is useful at all stages of development. Customer Development. AskAnything.VC

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Portfolio Equity 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 8, 2009

I got a powerful taste of datablindness recently, as I’ve started to work with various large companies as partners in setting up events, speeches, and other products to sell around the Lean Startup concept. There are lots of good reasons why I can’t have instantaneous access to this data, and each partner has their own.

San Francisco 84

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 84

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2012

He turned his PhD thesis into a killer product, got it funded and now was CEO of a company of 30. It was great to watch him embrace the spirit and practice of customer development. He was constantly in front of customers, listening, selling, installing and learning. Filed under: Customer Development.

Founder 323

Founder Cofounder Advisory Board Burn Rate 323

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 30, 2009

I thought Id share a little bit of that, too: I’ve been interested in different approaches to software development going back to 1987 when – in my first company Feld Technologies – my partner Dave Jilk and I started talking about “semi-custom software development&# (way ahead of its time).

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 7, 2008

At the end of the day, the product development team of a startup (large or small) is a service organization. It exists to serve the needs of customers, and it does this by offering its capabilities to other functions in the company, and partnering with them. So, fellow hackers, Id love to hear from you.

Software Review 94

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Part-Time VPE 94

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 26, 2018

In our experience, structured customer development work is right up there amongst the most valuable things a founder can do in the early days of their startup. Once you have an idea that feels strong, it’s imperative to speak with customers about it. But good customer development is tough to do.

Customer 75

Customer Framework Differentiation Customer Development 75

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Now the company is in crisis mode because the rest of the organization (product development, marketing, etc.) Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack. The alternative to the traditional product introduction process is the Business Model Design and Customer Development Stack.

Burn Rate 252

Burn Rate Management Business Model Customer Development 252

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 25, 2022

How do they make these transitions without alienating and losing their existing customers, distribution channels and partners? Some of the teams even included some of their close partners. This can’t be done without talking directly to the customers, internal stakeholders, and partners.

Framework 401

Framework Distribution Channel Leadership 401

blog.aparttimecto.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Un-knowledgeable - Since it’s just you and your partners, you might not be making the best choices. Find and hire one or more developers Pros: Implementation Speed - Developers working full time will be much more efficient for you and your product since they’ll be dedicated to your company.

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Fractional CTO Equity Vesting 40

SVPG

MARCH 17, 2011

Business and Financial Knowledge (7) - Does the product owner understand the economics and financial dynamics of his product? Process Skills: Customer Discovery Process (7) - Customer discovery includes customer interviewing skills, opportunity assessments and understanding of customer development programs.

Developer 67

Developer Product Technical Review SCRUM 67

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Chasing funding versus chasing customers and a repeatable and scalable business model, is one reason startups fail. Product Development – Getting Funded as The Goal In a traditional product development model, entrepreneurs come up with an idea or concept, write a business plan and try to get funding to bring that idea to fruition.

Customer Development 270

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 270

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 27, 2009

Herein lies the reason my partner and I started Dillotronics - as well as the reason your take on the matter resonated so well here. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Thanks for an enjoyable evening. June 3, 2009 8:16 PM Tom Gimbel said.

Lean 60

Lean Austin San Francisco Startup 60

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. List key partners and resources you will need, and then list your core team as well as their roles. Also, make a bullet list of the marketing activities that will drive customers to your door. The importance of a domain name.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Steve Blank

AUGUST 31, 2009

After 20 years of working in startups, I decided to take a step back and look at the product development model I had been following and see why it usually failed to provide useful guidance in activities outside the building – sales, marketing and business development. So what’s wrong the product development model?

Customer Development 245

Customer Development Developer Customer Silicon Valley 245

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2018

Depending on the complexity of the idea, most entrepreneurs will do some sort of research that will include meeting with people who are either in the field, potential customers, partners etc. The main objective of the meeting is to validate the idea and/or to get ideas on how to develop the solution/product or the business.

Stealth 198

Stealth Partner Developer Networking 198

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

To promote innovation inside the NGA, they’ve staffed an Enterprise Innovation Office (EIO) to coach, educate and advise the entire agency, from core leadership to the operational edges, with methods and concepts of validated learning through rapid experimentation and customer development.

Lean 185

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

AUGUST 29, 2016

To promote innovation inside the NGA, they’ve staffed an Enterprise Innovation Office (EIO) to coach, educate and advise the entire agency, from core leadership to the operational edges, with methods and concepts of validated learning through rapid experimentation and customer development.

Lean 185

Lean Silicon Valley Government Acquisition 185

Steve Blank

MARCH 11, 2015

and how to price the product. for new product development that emphasize immediate returns. Talking to Bob I realized that at Acme Widgets (and in most large companies) the word “failure” was being used to describe two very different events: failure in execution of a known product in known market.

Widget 120

Widget Lean Business Model Metrics 120

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

We now know this results in wasted engineering effort, time and cash, as customers don’t use, want or need most of the features developed without their input. Another path is to put product development on hold until the customer development team can find customers who can provide adequate feedback.

Customer 119

Customer Advisory Board Cofounder Engineer 119

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2009

This is especially useful in situations, like most B2B businesses, where the total number of customers is likely to be small. This case study illustrates one company’s attempt to do customer development by testing their vision with customers before writing a single line of code. Oh, this is just a Photoshop file?

San Francisco 144

San Francisco Customer Wiki Lean 144

viniciusvacanti.com

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

My business partner is still with the business, but I just didn't see a positive future without a strong technical co-founder. I pick my cofounder's brain almost daily about the inner workings of our product, so that I can be better informed about the tech side of things. The timing just never worked out. Vinicius Vacanti WOW!

Cofounder 43

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Founder Ruby 43

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 1, 2009

I see that as a great way for my product to grow, but while Ive partnered with companies in my consulting business, its not something Im as familiar with now that Im on the product side. I question what numbers I would need to be considered respectable and/or worth a potential partners time. eric: briefly, you rock dude.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

SoCal CTO

DECEMBER 1, 2010

The Ultimate Combination of Startup Business Development Methods - ArcticStartup , November 16, 2010 I've been a huge fan of Steven Blank's Customer Development methodology for a long time. Naturally, a big part of the go-to-market includes partnering with other players in the market. What went wrong? Not a good sign.

Technical Review 175

Technical Review Technology Product CTO Hire 175

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

I’ve watched new CEO’s brought into large existing consumer products companies to turn around a failing strategy. Their new strategy included a complete revamp and simplification of the product line. 5) The customer’s needs don’t match your long term direction. Fire might be a strong word.

Customer 218

Customer Silicon Valley RSS California 218

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Since NewTV won’t be making the content, they will be licensing from and partnering with traditional entertainment producers. NewTV will depend on partners like telcos to distribute the content. They needed to be sure that what they were building was what customers wanted and needed.

Lean 335

Lean Burn Rate Startup IPO 335

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Establish credibility with potential partners. In some businesses, especially in certain industries like traditional enterprise software, you simply cannot bring a new product to market on your own. You need to combine your product with others, and this requires partners like OEMs or system integrators.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

They have many, many man-years of development and customer development in them. You have your general management meeting and in your general management meeting you talk about product development, about marketing and about finance. Why not get a partner? Edwin: There are a million others. Edwin: I know.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

David Teten

OCTOBER 1, 2015

Customer development would be reduced to a single person exercise that could be repeated in parallel dozens of times over, ultimately yielding 30+ companies a year. Partnering with a source of capital, connections, and expertise for a large equity chunk is often worth it in those scenarios (e.g., Our model at Casual Corp.

Software Development 60

Software Development Software Developers Software Review Technical Cofounder 60

www.vccafe.com

MARCH 11, 2013

Steve Blank on Lean Customer Development. Great for visualizing work of product development. Mark Suster GRP Partners Advice. Philippe Botteri, Bessemer Venture Partners. Their Partners all come from industry, where each has held senior level executive positions delivering industry-leading products.

Software Review 53

Software Review Technical Review Israel Startup 53

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

are just emerging for business people (customer development, business model generation,). Product guy/designer-has a awesome understanding of the product and what people want, the industry your disrupting, and the problem your solving (he also helps out with cranking out the code). There is no cookie-cutter formula.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51